


Before All Time

by tossertozier (rednoseredhair)



Series: &tfat!verse [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M, homophobic slur, how do i warn for boring, slur, the f word is said, yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednoseredhair/pseuds/tossertozier
Summary: Nobody would have guessed that a group of people as different from each other as Bill, Ben, Bev, Richie, Eddie, Stan, and Mike are, would have come together the way they did. But despite the differences, there is one thing that absolutely every single one of them would agree on emphatically: they wish it hadn't all happened at a Renaissance Faire.





	Before All Time

**Author's Note:**

> this is lIterally just &tfat backstory. i've been saying i was gonna post this for a while so. why not.  
> & That's For All Time is my giant modern loser's club AU. It's certainly not mandatory for reading this. But honestly, if you don't read &tfat, i don't think this will be either fun or interesting to read. but i'm not ur keeper as richie would say.

I'm hesitant to post too much history with an in depth story like & That's For All Time, because I genuinely don’t know how much talking about the past might spoil the future.

Here we go anyway.  
  
Bill and Eddie are the oldest friends in this story. They’ve been friends since fourth grade. They meet Stan in middle school, who is not particularly interested in being their friend, but inadvertently introduces them to Richie, who he met through summer camp. This is all at the high school football game, despite being very much pre-teens, because they're big boys, now. There's also just very few things their parents will let them do on Friday nights. If you ask Mrs. Kaspbrak, her son is at study group. Rich goes to the catholic school that their team is playing against. Stan really is much more interested in his friends in his Boy Scout Troop and removes himself from this dynamic. Richie is, once again, the only member of the loser’s club to go to Stan’s Bar Mitzva. Eddie, Bill and Richie are fast friends. At the end of 8th grade Beverly Marsh moves to town with her Aunt Clara. She is the best thing since sliced bread according to 90% of the boys in Derry. Eddie Kaspbrak “thinks she’s pretty, but doesn’t want to date her because Bill likes her.”

Beverly Marsh is told this is her chance to start over. She doesn't want to start over, she doesn't know what she wants. She wants to hide under her skin for a while, never let anyone else's hands get anywhere close to her skin. She, as much as she can be, hides, somewhere, within herself. It is a quiet year for Aunt Clara and Beverly Marsh.  
  
In 9th grade, Richie Tozier shows up at Derry High. This is rough on Bill. Initially, he and Richie are not the type of friends who should hang out every day. They get in trouble a lot, they laugh a lot, but they fight a lot, too. Richie has a tendency to run his mouth. One time, it gets so bad that he gets his ass handed to him by a couple of seniors. They thoroughly rearrange his face. This only worsens the relationship with Bill. Bill is not trying to get beat up, no way. Nor is he trying to have a best friend who can't shut up long enough to keep himself from getting beat up. Eddie feels caught in the middle often. This is where Bill lets Eddie down. He’s really surprised that Bill doesn’t…handle it better. He complains about this to Stan Uris… who is baffled that Eddie seems to think they’re friends when they haven’t talked in, like, 2 years. Stan listens anyway. Stan starts sitting with them at lunch, swearing to him that he’s just gonna help patch this relationship up so Eddie will stop annoying him. Stan Uris is a Liar Sometimes.  
  
That summer, Richie goes back to camp with Stan. Bill goes away with his family like they always do. Eddie is Ready to Die he is So Bored. This is the summer where Eddie comes to terms with being gay. It involves a lot of panicking and sitting by himself and reading. Guess who he meets at the library? Yeah, introducing Mike Hanlon. Home-schooled, but kind and funny. Mike also already has a job even though he’s only 15, and he tells Eddie all kinds of insane stories about it. He works part time at the _Renaissance Faire_ , doing logistics stuff with his cousin. He wants to be a researcher, and knows a ton about medieval times.  
  
It’s a angst year, everybody. Bev fights with Clara almost constantly. Eddie comes out to Bill. Bill isn’t horribly surprised but also doesn’t have the foggiest clue how to help. Richie is fighting with his parents a Lot. He and Eddie talk a lot about serious stuff. Bill & Stan have tension with their parents but overall good relationships, they don’t quite get it the way Richie and Eddie do. At a point mid-year, Richie’s not doing great with his mental health, and lacks motivation really badly with his school work. He is not used to needing to put in effort & he badly procrastinated on a project… it’s about medieval times. It’s a shot in the dark, but Eddie emails Mike to see if he can help. He and Richie doubt he’ll respond because he hasn’t seen Mike since summer. Mike responds, and he and Richie do a 6 week long project in about four days. Richie lied to his parents and said he had been doing it all semester, so they do a lot of it at the Denbrough house. Richie is at Bill’s a lot, and Bill never asks questions. This is the year he drags the couch into the attic. Eddie doesn’t come out to Richie. He’s _terrified_ that it’ll change everything in their relationship. All of the little things, the casual affection  & kisses on the cheek and sharing beds. It seems like little, inconsequential stuff. Eddie lives for it, in his own private way. He doesn't know if he can be without it.  
  
It’s coming up on spring time. Richie turns 16 and his parents say

“Do something productive. get a job. do something other than play video games, we don’t care what.”

Richie says "fuck you, no."

Eddie would like to get a job. Sonia freaks out & gets upset that her son thinks he needs expendable income.

Georgie is now 11 and in middle school, and is Very Cool and Does Not want to go on their annual summer vacation. Bill’s parents lightly suggest that Bill go to camp that summer, or something. They know their son gets antsy during times of inactivity. Bill and Stan consider applying to be camp counselors together, Stan is qualified and Bill is Bill. Stan already started working that year in the fall. Richie knows for a fact he wouldn’t get hired at the place Bill and Stan want to work, he went there with Stan once and nearly got sent home. Eddie know his mother wouldn’t let him go, so he doesn’t entertain the thought.  
  
It’s worth mentioning that Bill is _smitten_ with Beverly Marsh at this point in time. Like, cheese-y high school smitten where they have not had a single conversation, but he’s thought of what their kids might look like. Smitten. And Stan, Eddie and Richie all know this…very well.  
  
So. Beverly Marsh. She’s in Stan’s class, and one day Richie comes into this class, waiting for Stan because they have plans after school. He is baffled that he’s been sitting next to Bev all year, and has never mentioned it to Bill.

“Why would i give him more fuel to stalk the poor girl?”

Richie tells him to at least ask her what she’s doing that summer. (He'll take anything that might convince Bill to stay in Derry for the summer.)  
  
Then, as it turns out, Stan quite likes Beverly Marsh. She's smart and funny which are just, basic requirements for being friends with Stan, but she's also _quick_. She keeps up. Hell, she races ahead of him, sometimes. He’s never wanted to date her, all wrong and his mother would never approve, but they’re quick friends. She tells him she’s thought of applying at the _Renaissance Faire_. It's a suggestion from Clara, and Bev is trying hard to take her Aunt's suggestions more seriously than she used to. It's silly and campy, but it's one of the few successful outings they had together that fall. It's very Clara, in a way. Stan, not sure if he wants Bill to have that information, tells Eddie, because Stan is foolish. Eddie tells Richie.  
  
This is the point in time where Eddie… _sort of_ _thinks_ he has a crush on Richie. A baby crush, he swears. Richie’s just gotten taller. He has white fill-ins in his braces now, instead of the colors, and his skin is cleared along his jaw, even. Eddie tells himself it’s just because he’s just discovering he likes guys, of course he sort of has a “ _thing_ ” for Richie, who kisses his cheek and calls him cute, sometimes, even then. It’s natural, he tells himself.  
  
Richie replies to Stan's discovery about Bev via Eddie with "nice, we're all working at the Renaissance Faire, now."

"Wait...what?" Says ...everyone else. 

Stan isn't necessarily thrilled that this news got spilled to Richie in the first place. Like, what the fuck, Eddie. He expresses this, and Eddie… _spills_. Eddie tells Stan he’s gay. Stan blinks.

"I would have thought you’d have better taste."

"It's really not like that, trust me."  
  
So, after an elaborate scheme of applying, interviewing, and tricking Sonia into thinking that Renaissance Faires involve a lot more history and a lot less beer, there are job offers! Three specifically, one for Eddie, Stan, and Bill.  
  
_Yeah_.  
  
Richie was just a mess during his interview. A bundle of nervous energy, loud and distracted and not charming and seemingly difficult to work with. A mess. And, so, this is a small scale disaster. Richie tries to hide it, but he's upset. Richie is _really_ upset. Mike Hanlon, once again, comes to the rescue. When Mike finds out Richie applied and got turned down, he's surprised. Richie might have procrastinated on that project, but the guy was smart. He was clever, and a hard worker, and deserves a job there as much as any of the rest of them do. He talks his manager from the last summer into giving Richie a job.  
  
SO, their first day, as it turns out, they all have jobs in a circle around the fountain of a witch. One named Whalburga they're told by an enthusiastic Richie Tozier with a small dragon puppet on his finger. Beverly Marsh is in fact there at the jeweler's. Richie sells dragon puppets, and he's _good_ at it tpo, making that interviewer eat their own fucking dust, thank you _very_ much. Bill works at the glass blower, Mike and Eddie work in the lemonade shop, and Stan sells ice-cream with a young man who has just moved to town named Ben Hanscom. Eddie, however, told his mother he works at the jewelers, and he and Bill go over there excessively. Eddie to take pictures for his mother. Bill has…his own reasons.  
  
Richie hits a growth spurt, and suddenly. there are girls _interested_ in _Richie_? Richie, well, Richie has always been interested in girls.

Eddie decides, emphatically, to not have a crush on Richie, no matter how many nicknames he gave him. And that was the end of that. It's been Decided. So thoroughly that, that day, Eddie tells Mike that he’s gay. It's sort of an accident, but Eddie is having a Moment.

“…okay, whatever, dude.” Mike replies.

The other person Eddie tells is Ben.  
  
Now…let’s make one thing perfectly clear: there is no possible way this group could have come together the way it did without Ben Hanscom. Ben is both the soother when Stan was pretty sure he was going to rip his hair out at the face paced, messy job environment, and a do-er when Bill has a crazy idea with little idea how to execute. He is the glue for the forming group of the guys in the square.  
  
One day, Eddie is in the jewelry shop, sans Bill, and Bev is _so_ curious. She stops him.

"I’m sorry," Bev says, "I know it’s none of my business and you might really like earrings, but why do you come here every day?”

Eddie opens his mouth and doesn’t stop talking for _hours_. He and Bev are TIGHT, then. They spent ludicrous amounts of time together, talking about parent problems and boys, and music and anything under the sun. This goes on for a solid month, until mid-July. He feels weird, because Bill has been talking about this girl for years. _Years_. He, with a bit of reluctance, introduces her to his newly formed, he supposed, group of guys.  
  
And Bev thinks “ah, yeah, this guy that tries to flirt with me but never quite finishes what he was saying.”  
  
Here's the thing about this group of guys. There’s Stan, who she knows. There’s Mike, who’s nice enough. Then there’s Eddie who’s little and gay. And then there’s Bill. Who, stutter and all, is decently confident, good enough looking, and the clear cut leader. She wonders if these guys go to the bathroom if Bill hasn’t suggested it first.  
  
And then there’s Richie.  
  
Richie is loud and shameless and so very, clearly insecure. His heart calls out to hers, she hears it say "hi, I think we need to be together in some way." Bev relates with him, even if he annoys her at first. She doesn't know if she's truly just trying to shake up the group dynamics, play a little hard to get with Bill. But she jives with Richie. She wants to be the one to mellow him out, make him a better person. They kiss the day after he gets his braces off. She discovers that day that, beyond anything that does or doesn't have to do with Bill, she likes him. He is a good person.  
  
They’re never a couple. But they make-out. Richie begins to feel very very safe for Bev, and that’s the most important thing to her. Richie, however, doesn’t become the sincere, emotional man she thought, she’d hoped, he’d become. He becomes closed off, moreso than he was before. He doesn’t talk about feelings, but he’ll listen to hers.  
  
Richie is fighting with his best friend  & really upset about it. Bill gets _everything_. Everyone _loves_ Bill. Bev likes Richie. Bill can’t handle it, not well.  
  
Eddie stops hanging out with Bev. He becomes evasive. She has no idea what she did, until she knows very clearly what Richie didn’t do. Eddie and Bev never return to the friendship quite like the one they had before she was introduced to the group.  
  
If their relationship was ever perceptible to the group dynamic, it becomes practically non-existent to an eye that isn’t looking for it. Richie and Bev still kiss sometimes. Bev accepts that they’re never going to fall in love, and on the same day, she steals a set of golf clubs with Stan uris. The next day, the group plays Whaleburga for the first time and talk about all the stuff they're going to do together that fall. 

"I'm wearing this," Richie gestures to his Faire outfit, "on the first day of school."

"You'll look like a fucking loser." Stan reminds him.

Richie laughs, "I am a fucking loser. We all are. We all willingly spent our summer at the goddamn Renaissance Faire." Everyone laughs.

They dub themselves the Loser’s Club, and it’s pretty official that they’re stuck with each other, hell or high water.

Ben Hanscom never, ever thought, that of all the places in the world, he'd feel like he belongs at the Renaissance Faire in Derry, Maine. But home is not necessarily where you hang your hat, nor is it always a choice. He's optimistic, more than he ever has been, about walking into high school that fall. He's walking in with friends, true ones too, ones that listen to him talk and don't just ask to borrow notes. And sure, there is Beverly Marsh who made his heart ache in ways he didn't know it was capable of, but she is a friend, too. She covers his arms one afternoon in temporary tattoos of dolphins. His heart aches then, in a different way, maybe. He'd take any form of her he could get her, wet paper towels and big laughs. He's happy.   
  
Fall of their junior year is the group honey moon phase. They are really, _really_ happy. They go to pumpkin patches and horror movies and have a Friendsgiving. Georgie Denbrough is miserable. It seemed like Bill always had friends over and they’re annoying and loud and he’s not allowed to have friends over that often and that’s completely unfair.

Mike, Ben and Eddie go to Comic-Con. Eddie has always wanted to go to Comic-Con, and his mother would have taped him to a wall to stop him if she knew. They have so much fun, so much that they hardly even care about having to endure the teasing about being such nerds from Bill, Richie and Stan. They have no regrets. Eddie has never felt so alive than at Comic-Con.   
  
Stan buys his car, which means they have a whole (3) methods of transportation, including Mike’s truck, Ben’s car, and Stan’s. It is (exciting) y’all. And then Bill, never seemingly one-upped, buys a car. He has nowhere near the budget Stan had to work off of because Bill buys dumb shit and Stan doesn’t.

It’s a “project car”

…okay, Bill.  
  
Eddie is now 17. He’s only had one kiss, and it was with a girl in 7th grade and it was terrible and Richie made fun of him for it for months. He _wants_ to be _held_. Eddie downloads dating apps. It's cringey, but he can't bring himself to care that much. Stan will sometimes drive him to dates. It sucks, but it’s something.  
  
He’s smirking at his phone one day at a text conversation with a boy he met up with once named Derrick. Derrick is tall and funny and not terrible to look at but most of all he likes Eddie, he really likes Eddie. He texts Eddie a lot.

Richie ribs him on the smile, and says "look at that smile," with a smile of his own, "Who are you texting, cutie?" He asks, chin in his palm, "Is it your mom? She's always got me like that."

"Shut up, Richie," Eddie can't stop the grin though.

"Is it Derrick, again?" Stan asks without thinking. Richie freezes, the table freezes and the universe sort of feels like it freezes. Stan remembers in that moment that Richie doesn't know. That Eddie's gay, that Eddie's been dating.  Stan hopes he doesn't demonstrate why he shouldn't in the next few moments.  
  
Eddie and Richie step outside. The rest of them miss the first piece of the conversation, but the voices raise, and they hear a lot of it.   
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“Why did you need to know?”  
  
“You told everyone? You told _Ben_!? You’ve known him for a couple of months, Eddie, we’ve been best friends for years.”  
  
“It’s not really any of your business, Rich.”  
  
“Why don’t you trust me?”  
  
“That’s not it.”  
  
“Then what is it??”  
  
The fight doesn’t get settled that day. They have to go back to class before they can stop going round and round in circles. It’s one of the worst days of Eddie’s life. He’s on edge that someone heard them, paranoid that Richie is so upset he’s gonna say something, and upset that he’s fighting with his best friend. He passes by a pack of lacrosse players that afternoon. They laugh as soon as he’s past.  
  
The lacrosse players genuinely were just laughing at an inside joke. No one said a word about Eddie. Eddie is just already worked up and paranoid. He flips around and starts _yelling_. He starts yelling at them.

"Laugh it up," he screams, "I know it's really fucking funny to laugh at the _faggot_."

Bill hears yelling from down the hall and he thinks "… is that…oh god, what _now_ ," and he comes running.

He tears Eddie away. He takes Eddie home to his house. They sit in his room, and Eddie wants to ask to go up into the attic, Richie's room, as he started calling it, but refrains. The players insist that afternoon to Stan, Ben, and Bev that they really didn’t say anything but they’re sorry if they upset Eddie. They tell them that he was already upset and it wasn’t their fault. Richie appears at the tail end of this conversation, and asks "what wasn’t who’s fault?"

No one wants to tell Richie what happened.  
  
After a week of pure misery in the club, they trick the two of them into being in the same room. They forgive, but it’s tentative and unsure. Richie never really tells Eddie how much it hurts him to think Eddie doesn’t trust him. Eddie never really tells Richie that he was just worried that he wouldn’t want to be close to him anymore.  
  
That afternoon, Eddie tweets an apology. Not just to the players, but to anyone who might be struggling with themself, and had to hear him say that word. He says, and he sincerely does, that he hopes he never hears it within the walls of Derry High again. A few days pass, and his relationship is still unsure with Richie. They sit together in silence in a way they never used to.  
  
Richie asks Eddie “let’s go to prom together.”  
  
Eddie reels. “What?”  
  
Richie backsteps. “The losers. Junior Prom, let’s all just go together.”  
  
And it’s not _necessarily_ enough. But Eddie and Richie spend most of prom together. It’s not a date, but it could have been one. Others might have thought it was one. Rumors are whispered about Richie, about him and Eddie. Richie, to his credit, never lets it change him, or how he treats Eddie. He makes an earnest attempt at keeping anything from changing, including the arm firmly wrapped over Eddie's shoulder. They’re playing small various pranks and making fun of people’s outfits and dancing to fast songs and vaping outside during slow ones and it’s…closer to enough than Eddie thinks it should be.  
  
It’s time to apply for jobs again, because the year flew by. Stan and Mike apply for the same job, and it gets tense. Mike has the longest reputation at the Faire. Stan really, _really_ cannot work in a stand again, or at least one the way his was. He can't stand the chaos. It really upset his sensitivities. It’s a point of upset when Mike gets the job as an intern in the offices. Stan shuts down a little bit, and reverts from the group a bit.  
  
Richie and Bev audition for the main stage. Bev gets the role she auditioned for. Richie thinks he’s gotten something much better in the part of the fool. He _loves_ it. He gets to insult people and get paid for it, even if they throw things, who cares? He lives for the training sessions, and he can’t wait for summer. Ben works in the tea shop that summer, Stan starts out in the jewelry store, and Eddie works in the same lemonade stand. Stan can’t take the Faire, though. It’s really grating on him, and he doesn’t know if he can last the whole summer out there. Mike swings him a compromise. He gets him a job counting the cash in the offices. Mike works really hard to convince them Stan is the right person for it, even with a lack of relevant experience. Stan truly comes to round out his appreciation for Mike that day. They’re closer than ever, and they were close before.  
  
Mike dates a girl this summer. Her name is Sabrina, she is beautiful, and no one quite knows how to feel about someone infringing on potential Loser territory. They also aren't sure if they can really call themselves losers anymore, with Mike dating a girl quite like that one. It turns out to be a relative non-issue. She stays pretty separate from the rest of the group, and everyone is sort of thankful about it.  
  
Eddie’s mom gets a cane this summer, and she really can’t walk well anymore. Eddie doesn’t like to talk about it.  
  
Richie kind of starts to live in the Denbrough house this summer. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed Bev, since before the giant gay fight. It eases his relationship with Bill. He and Bill spend a lot of time together, their relationship is somewhat to restored to what it hadn’t been in a long time. They both privately think, and would never express so out-loud because they're Men now, that they're both better for it. They're better together.   
  
Richie also spends a lot of time with Eddie. Eddie tells him about his mom, and Richie bites his tongue to keep from making a joke so hard he bleeds. They talk about Richie’s girls, they talk about college, they talk about the future. They don’t talk about Eddie’s Grindr escapades, but they’re all nightmares, anyway. Eddie and Richie are all picking-up hugs and inside jokes and comments only they understand, smacking cheek kisses and weird flirtations.   
  
One night, Bev asks Richie about Eddie. All simple stuff, like how long they’ve been friends and if Eddie ever dated before, what Richie would think about it if he had a boyfriend at the Faire. When it starts to get to be too much, Richie kisses her.

It’s the last time they kiss.  
  
She doesn’t know why, but she tells Ben about it.

“We’re over now,” she says, “we never really started, but whatever it was is definitely over.”  
  
Ben could have rented a plane to write a thank you message across the sky. Ben has…loved, wanted, cared for Beverly Marsh since the moment he saw her. He’s content to wait. It scares him a little bit, but he's pretty sure he’d wait forever.  
  
Richie kills his job that summer, as much as he killed the one before, destroying the expectations of his supervisors. It almost becomes a joke amongst higher-ups, a real Tozier, they'd call it, something that seems like it's not going to work out until it does. They offer him a part in the traveling team, which he has every intention of accepting.  
  
Senior year hits them, stressful and strong. They’re losing their minds, applying for scholarships, helping Stan build this playground for his eagle scout project before it starts to snow “ _you will never say we don’t love you again, Uris_ ,” and trying to keep their wits about them in their love lives - Mike is doing long distance with Sabrina and it is not going well. Richie and Eddie are messes on dating apps. Bill has dated a few girls but none of them are _Bev_.  
  
Stan is the most stressed about college. Stan grew up in the tightest financial situation. He never complains, but he can’t afford to go to school without a sizable scholarship. It’s just not financially possible without taking out huge loans, which he won’t do. He gets in a fight with Eddie. Eddie normally takes out his stress by…complaining out loud. Eddie is nervous about college, because it’s a fight every day with his mom about where he’s allowed to apply to and where he isn’t. But unlike Stan, he has a sizable inheritance from his father’s life insurance policy to support him in where he wants to go. The stakes are higher for Stan. This fight dissolves relatively quickly, unlike the other fight of the winter semester.  
  
So, Richie tells Went and Maggie about traveling and it goes about as well as you can imagine.

Went essentially says "no."

Richie essentially says "you can’t stop me."

Cue enormous Tozier household breakdown. Richie, all upset that his parents can’t accept him as different from them and not interested in certain social norms, his parents just wanting him to go to school.

Richie is in a piss poor mood during this time period. He’s actively avoiding his parents, even when their extended family comes to visit. But he doesn’t have a car so that’s _difficult_. He’s bitching a lot, _especially_ about his dad. It comes to a point where it is near constant  & one afternoon Bev snaps.

She tells him he’s being ungrateful, and incredibly inconsiderate, considering the company he keeps. (Ben, Eddie, and Mike all have a deceased father. Bev’s father is in jail for excellent reasons.) They launch into huge fight, both entirely stubborn and unwilling to see the other’s point of view and also annoyed with their friends who absolutely will not take sides. Bill reminds Rich how hard this time of year, the holidays, is for Bev. Ange reminds Bev that Richie’s negative experiences don’t attenuate her own, or invalidate them. He never said that his life, or relationship with his dad, is worse or harder than any of theirs. He just said it’s hard. Bev has a hard time distinguishing the two. But life isn’t a … competition, in that regard.

It's ultimately Richie who apologizes, and Richie who learns a big lesson in watching his mouth and what he says to who.  
  
Richie is talking about going to California a lot, then. In January it’s California this, California that. He keeps trying to get Eddie to apply to at least one school on the west coast.

“C’mon Eds, you and me on the golden coast.”

“Richie, my mom would die before letting me do this. I’m serious. Die.”  
  
Bill is the first to commit to college, full feet forward without a look back. He’s going to U.S.M.

Eddie commits to the same school a week later.  
  
Richie is tempted to commit there, too. More than he's ever been tempted by anything, he thinks. Ben and Stan talk to him about it.

“Is there anything there you’re even remotely interested in studying?”

“…no, not really.”

“Richie, you really _can't_ follow them to college. It's not what's best for _you_. It's hard. I know it's hard.”  
  
Ben commits to U.M. There's at least a radio program at U.M.  
  
A week and a half later, while insisting it’s not at all a compromise, and that California is just not ready for Richie Tozier, so does Richie.  
  
Bev gets her acceptance to FIT and they’re ecstatic. Mike announces he’s not going anywhere. Everyone is surprised, but tries to remain supportive.

“Maybe later, maybe in a year,” he tells them. He’d tell Bill later about his obligations, his grandparents and the farm. How he feels like he can’t go, like someone has to stay with them. He's responsible, unchangingly so. Bill can't help but think Mike should also be responsible to himself, but he can't tell Mike what to do, not with things like that. He pats his shoulder and tells him he's with him, in Derry or on Mars.   
  
Lastly, Stan gets not only an acceptance from NYU, but a big, fat scholarship. A full ride. No one is surprised. But everyone is SHOCKED when Stan’s eyes turn bright red, and a tear slips out of the corner. Stan worked so hard for this. Everyone cries a little bit at the table. They’re so proud of him, but it’s also... it. That’s everyone. They’re all splitting up, at least a little bit.  
  
Senior Prom season is upon them and Bev announces her plan to take Mike as her formal date. She sort of has to, or he can’t go to their prom. Ben comes to their lunch table the next day with a date, too.  
  
Richie is stressed. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it feels like one. He’s not a kid anymore, not gawky and awkward. His glasses fit his face and his teeth are straight and he at least knows what a comb is, now. He’s not a nerd, not anymore, and it feels important to take someone who’s…someone. Show everyone who has nasty things to say about the Trashmouth up. Bill, Eddie and Stan think this is the most ridiculous charade they’ve ever seen.  
  
Eddie proposes to Richie, the same way he did a year early, “let’s go to prom together.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The Losers. It was fun last year, and it could be fun again. I know Ben has a date now, but Bev is just taking Mike, and no one else has a date yet-”  
  
Richie showed up to their lunch table the next day with a date.  
  
Stan takes a girl who he dated a few months back but broke up with amicably.  
  
Bill doesn’t take a date. No one really knows if it’s about Bev or about Eddie or if it’s both.  
  
That summer, Mike gets promoted from intern to management. Ben applies for an internship at the offices, and is the only candidate considered, getting his call the next day. Bev and Richie re-audition for their roles, and of course, there's no one they'd rather have. Bill takes the same job again.

Eddie just shows up, not knowing what to expect.  
  
& that’s what you missed on glee.


End file.
